Saudi Arabia gives Israel clear skies to attack Iranian nuclear sites

[Budog]

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Saudi Arabia has conducted tests to stand down its air defences to enable Israeli jets to make a bombing raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities, The Times can reveal.

In the week that the UN Security Council imposed a new round of sanctions on Tehran, defence sources in the Gulf say that Riyadh has agreed to allow Israel to use a narrow corridor of its airspace in the north of the country to shorten the distance for a bombing run on Iran.

To ensure the Israeli bombers pass unmolested, Riyadh has carried out tests to make certain its own jets are not scrambled and missile defence systems not activated. Once the Israelis are through, the kingdom’s air defences will return to full alert.

“The Saudis have given their permission for the Israelis to pass over and they will look the other way,” said a US defence source in the area. “They have already done tests to make sure their own jets aren’t scrambled and no one gets shot down. This has all been done with the agreement of the [US] State Department.”

Sources in Saudi Arabia say it is common knowledge within defence circles in the kingdom that an arrangement is in place if Israel decides to launch the raid. Despite the tension between the two governments, they share a mutual loathing of the regime in Tehran and a common fear of Iran’s nuclear ambitions. “We all know this. We will let them [the Israelis] through and see nothing,” said one.

The four main targets for any raid on Iran would be the uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz and Qom, the gas storage development at Isfahan and the heavy-water reactor at Arak. Secondary targets include the lightwater reactor at Bushehr, which could produce weapons-grade plutonium when complete.

The targets lie as far as 1,400 miles (2,250km) from Israel; the outer limits of their bombers’ range, even with aerial refuelling. An open corridor across northern Saudi Arabia would significantly shorten the distance. An airstrike would involve multiple waves of bombers, possibly crossing Jordan, northern Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Aircraft attacking Bushehr, on the Gulf coast, could swing beneath Kuwait to strike from the southwest.

Passing over Iraq would require at least tacit agreement to the raid from Washington. So far, the Obama Administration has refused to give its approval as it pursues a diplomatic solution to curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Military analysts say Israel has held back only because of this failure to secure consensus from America and Arab states. Military analysts doubt that an airstrike alone would be sufficient to knock out the key nuclear facilities, which are heavily fortified and deep underground or within mountains. However, if the latest sanctions prove ineffective the pressure from the Israelis on Washington to approve military action will intensify. Iran vowed to continue enriching uranium after the UN Security Council imposed its toughest sanctions yet in an effort to halt the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme, which Tehran claims is intended for civil energy purposes only. President Ahmadinejad has described the UN resolution as “a used handkerchief, which should be thrown in the dustbin”.

Israeli officials refused to comment yesterday on details for a raid on Iran, which the Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has refused to rule out. Questioned on the option of a Saudi flight path for Israeli bombers, Aharaon Zeevi Farkash, who headed military intelligence until 2006 and has been involved in war games simulating a strike on Iran, said: “I know that Saudi Arabia is even more afraid than Israel of an Iranian nuclear capacity.”

In 2007 Israel was reported to have used Turkish air space to attack a suspected nuclear reactor being built by Iran’s main regional ally, Syria. Although Turkey publicly protested against the “violation” of its air space, it is thought to have turned a blind eye in what many saw as a dry run for a strike on Iran’s far more substantial — and better-defended — nuclear sites.

Israeli intelligence experts say that Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan are at least as worried as themselves and the West about an Iranian nuclear arsenal.Israel has sent missile-class warships and at least one submarine capable of launching a nuclear warhead through the Suez Canal for deployment in the Red Sea within the past year, as both a warning to Iran and in anticipation of a possible strike. Israeli newspapers reported last year that high-ranking officials, including the former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, have met their Saudi Arabian counterparts to discuss the Iranian issue. It was also reported that Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad, met Saudi intelligence officials last year to gain assurances that Riyadh would turn a blind eye to Israeli jets violating Saudi airspace during the bombing run. Both governments have denied the reports.


Budog.

[JimBob]

I would accept that is being valid info.

None of the countries in that area want any one country to have an unproportional military advantage over the other.

And we all know that the fundamentalist Moslems are not the most peace-loving people on this planet.

Peace & Love!

[Budog]

My neighbor and friend is over in or near Kuwait right now as a civilian contractor for the military. We keep in touch via facebook. He said that the flight plan would take the planes right over where he is now. He said this could get real ugly, real fast and was very apprehensive even at the possibility of such an action...

Budog.

[OccultPizza]

I wrote about this #### on FB, not about this specifically but I had the worse IDS attack ever, then the flotilla got smacked down, now WWIII lingers closer on the horizon, especially with the way the economy is going around the world ~smiles~

BP was no accident....There is 6.7 billion people in this world the 1% realize that the masses need to be culled, so that is what will happen in the next several years ~sighs~, until the people rise up all over the world and say ENOUGH!!! ~smiles~

I am just enjoying the ride ~smiles~

[Budog]

Well, I think you already know I am not a fan of Israel and their Zionist oppressive occupation government from my posts on FB... F' em!

Budog.

[JimBob]

Originally Posted by Budog

Well, I think you already know I am not a fan of Israel and their Zionist oppressive occupation government from my posts on FB... F' em!

Budog.

Hehehe. I won't take sides because both sides have done a lot of ugly things.

But I will say this: As long as the terrorists send suicide bombers into Israel to kill innocent and defenseless women and children I will support Israel's right to defend itself and to take punitive action against their enemy.

Peace & Love!

[Budog]

Originally Posted by JimBob

Hehehe. I won't take sides because both sides have done a lot of ugly things.

But I will say this: As long as the terrorists send suicide bombers into Israel to kill innocent and defenseless women and children I will support Israel's right to defend itself and to take punitive action against their enemy.

Peace & Love!

If soldiers came into your village, kicked in your doors and evicted you or imprisoned you from land and from sea, I bet you would fight them with everything you had too... One man's terrorist villain is another mans freedom fighting hero. Look at our American history, we are a nation of terrorist, traitors, cut throats etc. if you look at it honestly and with an open mind.

Budog.

[JimBob]

Originally Posted by Budog

If soldiers came into your village, kicked in your doors and evicted you or imprisoned you from land and from sea, I bet you would fight them with everything you had too... One man's terrorist villain is another mans freedom fighting hero. Look at our American history, we are a nation of terrorist, traitors, cut throats etc. if you look at it honestly and with an open mind.

Budog.

Yes, I would probably exit but I would do my best to make sure I took a few with me. But your example is unfair because you are not considering that those lands were won by the Isrealis during a war that their enemies started. Historically they have the right to be custodians of those lands taken during war-time and to remain the custodians until the lands can govern themselves and they are no longer a threat to the winners. This has been practice all through recorded history.

Now, if the loosers are too brain-dead to realize that they lost the war then little can be done - they will never win their own independance. They are fighting a war that has already been lost. They lost it during WWII when they supported the Nazis instead of the Allieds. The Jews supported the Allieds - they won.

There was an honest attempt by the Allieds to establish territories for both sides in this conflict. The Jews accepted but their enemy did not because they wanted it all. They had no right to have it all. Jews started migrating back to what is now Isreal during the 1880s. Everything was fine until WWII and sides were taken.

Sure, the Jews did start displacing the the people who call themselves Palistinians during the late 1930s. They were using techniques they learned from the Nazis that were being used against them and no one around the world said anything about it. I guess the Jews figured that if it was okay for the Nazis to do it it would be okay for them to do it as well.

Remember, Israel won the West Bank and Gaza during the 1968 war. They have been trying to give those lands back to the Arabs (Palestinians) but the Palestinians refuse to accept what they have still remaining because they want it all, including the lands of the Israelis.

No, when you loose a war you get only what the winner is willing to offer. The longer they wait to accept an offer the less there will be to accept.

The leadership of Iran has said openly to the world that Israel does not have the right to exist and that the nation should be destroyed. That would immediately put Israel on the defensive and give them cause for first strike if it even appeared that Iran was going to take any action against Israel.

No, I believe that Israel has the right to administer the lands they won during the 1968 war and continue to administer it until they feel confident that those people will not continue to cause the distruction of Israel. That is what the winner is supposed to do.

Peace & Love!

[Budog]

Well JimBob, it is obvious we will more likely than not agree on this matter, but I am not going to argue or debate it with you. I say let's just agree to disagree...

Budog.

[JimBob]

Originally Posted by Budog

Well JimBob, it is obvious we will more likely than not agree on this matter, but I am not going to argue or debate it with you. I say let's just agree to disagree...

Budog.

Hehehe. I already knew that we would never gain an agreement. Yep, in situations such as this it is best to just agree to disagree and move on to something else.

Peace to you Budog.

Peace & Love!